


You forgave (and I won't forget)

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-04-20 05:38:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 15,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14254170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: 2018 ficlet collection!- - - - -16. "You can't just kiss me and then act like it never happened!"17. Canonverse; Madi and Bellamy do something special for Clarke





	1. Across a Crowded Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this](https://katchyalater.tumblr.com/post/169773853153/a-timely-interruption-i-want-the-first-the-100) tumblr post.

Murphy kept his head down as he slipped into the medical center. He wasn’t strictly supposed to be there, but Emori’s cough hadn’t gone away even as her body adjusted to being back on the ground and he didn’t trust the Eligius makeshift doctor’s assessment that it was just allergies. He didn’t trust any of them, really.

What else was new.

Luckily, no one took any notice of him because though the room was packed– more crowded than usual, actually– all their focus seemed to be on something Murphy couldn’t see.

He lurked by the shelves with the medicine, popping the cabinet open quietly and casually as he could. Lurking was a specialty of his, as was looting. As he surveyed the options, he eavesdropped on the buzz of excitement vibrating through the room.

“–a girl with her–”

“–shot Kwan in the leg … knew exactly where to aim–”

“–need to find out what she knows–”

“–the only living thing we’ve found here so far–”

Murphy froze.

They found someone? A human being, a woman from the sound of it. Bellamy had said the bunker looked buried when the scouting trip he’d been on had checked the area, but maybe they’d found another way out. Maybe the cave-in had happened after they emerged. Maybe–

A hiss of pain and a muttered swear cut across the chatter, surprise dampening the chatter in the room.

“So she _does_ speak English,” someone near him grumbled with grim satisfaction.

Murphy had gone still for another reason. He turned slowly, anticipation inching up his spine. Certainty that he knew that swear. He knew that _voice_.

The mass of people shifted just enough for him to make out the woman seated on the exam table, her shirt pulled off one arm as the doc stitched up a wound just above her shoulder blade. Her hair was shorter than it used to be but the murder in her ice-blue eyes was the same, the stubborn set of her lips so familiar it made Murphy’s gut clench.

He dragged a hand down his face, letting it rest over his gaping mouth.

How could Clarke be here? How could she be alive?

Blake was going to lose his shit. Probably Reyes too.

As if drawn by the force of his gaze, her eyes drifted to meet his and widened imperceptibly with recognition. Her own hand flew to cover her own mouth and as a few of the others in the room turned, they both forced their eyes away. Murphy turned back to the cabinet, shoving a handful of pills into his pocket and making his way to the exit.

He cast her one last look before he ducked out the door, and though they’d never had the same telepathic party trick she’d had with Bellamy, there was understanding on her face. Understanding that he’d be back for her, and not alone.

The corner of his mouth tipped upward in a smirk as he half-ran down the hall.

The others were never going to believe this.


	2. Across a Crowded Room (II)

The others were whispering in a tight huddle when he returned to the room they’d all been sharing. He’d thought about running, flinging the door open, breathlessly spilling his tale, but– that wasn’t really his style. He was more of the type to sit back and make sarcastic jokes about other people’s dramatics than to indulge in them himself.

Besides, he was pretty sure Bellamy was going to take the news with drama enough for ten people.

They had paused when the door opened, but when they saw it was just Murphy coming in, they’d resumed their plotting and scheming. Probably trying to figure out where the bunker was in relation to them, how far, how they’d get there.

Emori was the only one who took notice of him, scrutinizing his face as he slipped her a couple of the pills and a stern expression telling her to take them.

“What’s with you?” She asked, voice low.

“I have news.”

He let his voice carry a little more, cutting over the conversation on the other side of the room. Okay, so sue him. He liked a little bit of drama.

“News?” Bellamy echoed, only sounding half interested.

“Found something interesting in medical.”

“Oh.” His shoulders slumped. He’d probably been hoping for news of the bunker, news of his sister. Well, what Murphy had was going to blow that out of the water. “Can it wait? I want to finish this before one of the Eligius comes to get us.”

“Sure,” shrugged Murphy, nonchalant. “I’ll just go let Clarke know it might be longer than I thought.”

It was almost funny, the way color drained from Bellamy’s face. As if he’d seen a ghost. As if he were a ghost. The others ranged from shocked to skeptical, the room so quiet Murphy could have sworn he could hear Raven’s jaw fall open.

“Clarke?” She croaked, disbelieving. “Clarke is here? She’s–”

“Bleeding. Mostly fine, but it looks like they got her in the shoulder.” He grinned. “She got in a few shots before they managed to capture her.”

“That’s Clarke alright,” Monty half-laughed, running a hand through his hair in disbelief. “I can’t believe she survived.”

“I can,” Echo grumbled, so quiet that Murphy might have been the only one who could hear her.

A sudden clang made everyone jump as Bellamy rocketed to his feet, tipping over his metal chair in the process. Murphy’s eyes widened and he slid between him and the door, Raven and Harper grabbing at him from behind. There was a frenzied, almost manic look in his eyes as he struggled against their hold.

“Get out of my way,” he growled.

Murphy shook his head. “You can’t just go bust her out. Where would you go? That’s what we’ve been planning for weeks, right?” Tentative, he reached out and placed a hand on Bellamy’s shoulder. “I want to get her out too, but she’s mobbed by Eligius right now. We gotta wait until they let their guard down.”

Bellamy swallowed, shaking his head. “I have to see her. I have to–”

“You will,” Raven told him firmly. “But Murphy’s right. We have to use our heads.”

Something in those words reached through the fog and settled him back in his body. His muscles went lax. Reason returned to his face.

“You’re right,” he said, gruff. “We use our heads. We get Clarke.” His eyes met Murphy’s. “And then we’re getting out of here.”


	3. Double Entendre

"Marco!”

“Polo,” Bellamy calls back, though it comes out garbled. That might have something to do with the way his face is smushed into the couch pillow.

It’s with great effort that he heaves himself upright, running a hand over his staticky hair as Clarke rounds the corner.

“Joke’s on you,” he says. “I’m the only one home.”

“Where’s everybody else?”

It’s a valid question. Bellamy, Wells, and Miller are the only ones who officially live in the house but at any given moment it wouldn’t be surprising to find Raven, Monty (and by extension, Jasper), or Octavia (when she wants to eat for free or needs a quiet place to work on her coursework) around. Bellamy is probably the last person Clarke could reasonably expect to find in the house that she’d want to hang out with.

He doesn’t blame her. He was a judgy dick when they first met, and so was she, and as much as he now realizes they’d get along, he refuses to be the first to admit it.

“Work, school, and helping Wells’s dad reset his passwords after he fell for a phishing scam.”

Clarke snorts. “Sounds about right.”

“Yeah. I have no idea when any of them will be home but feel free to hang out.”

“Thanks.” She digs in her bag for her ever-present sketchbook as Bellamy pushes to his feet. He thinks she’s distracted enough not to notice his wince. Unfortunately, the hiss of pain gives him away and she looks up sharply.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Blake. Did you hurt yourself?”

“I’m fine,” he grumbles, but his face contorts when he leans down to grab his own bag and Clarke is no fool.

“Is it your back?”

Bellamy pauses. “I slept funny last night and I have a crick in my neck. That’s all. It’ll go away after another sleep or two.”  
Clarke purses her lips as she studies him, her blue eyes so piercing he wouldn’t be surprised if she could see right through to the knot in his muscles.

“You want me to try to work the kink out?” She offers after a moment.

“Work the kink out?” Bellamy repeats, smirking. “That a double entendre, Princess?”

“If I meant it as a double entendre you’d know, doofus.” She flips her sketchbook shut and moves to the couch, shoving the coffee table forward with her feet so there’s enough room for Bellamy to sit between her knees. Which he does, with no small amount of suspicion.

“What do you think I’m gonna do to you? The worst that can happen is it doesn’t feel better when I’m done.”

“I’m just trying to figure out the quid pro quo. What’s the going rate for massaging someone you hate?”

“I don’t hate you. Now stop talking.”

“There’s the ulterior motive,” he teases but does as she says. To his continued surprise, Clarke doesn’t go first for his shoulders or neck, but presses her fingers to his temples, a soreness he hadn’t even felt coming to the forefront of his consciousness as she rubs slow circles.

“How does that feel?” She asks after a few minutes.

“Sorry, can I talk now?”

“As long as you tell me how that feels.”

“Really good.” His voice is huskier than he’d intended. He clears his throat. “How’d you know? That it hurt there. I didn’t even know.”

“How many times have I seen you clench this?” Her fingers trail down to the hinge of his jaw, pain flaring as she digs her knuckles in. Bellamy lets his jaw fall open the slightest bit, a rattling exhale escaping that he can’t bring himself to be embarrassed about.

He expects Clarke to linger there but she doesn’t for long. Instead she presses her thumbs into the base of his skull, pushing his head forward so that his chin tucks against his chest.

“I didn’t know you were looking so closely,” he mumbles.

“How do you think I know exactly how to get under your skin?”

"You’re right. I shouldn’t be surprised at all.”

For what is probably only a handful of minutes (but could be hours for all Bellamy is aware of his surroundings) Clarke kneads the sore muscles down through his shoulders, her methodical, intense nature oddly fitting for such a task. Bellamy is practically a puddle by the time she finishes, slumped against her with his head propped on her knee so she can get better access to the part that’s been giving him so much trouble.

"All done,” she says at last, scratching lightly at his scalp.

He moans and nuzzles her leg with his forehead, two things he’ll never admit to in anyone else’s presence.

“I think we have to stop pretending we’re not friends now,” he says, blaming his ultra-relaxed state for the way the words slip out. “You gave me a massage. I’m about to fall asleep on you. We gotta face the facts.”

Clarke pauses for long enough he almost starts to get worried again.

“What if I don’t want to be friends?” She asks at last. Bellamy freezes but she keeps petting him.

"You don’t have to be. Obviously.” He starts to pull away but Clarke’s hands tug gently at his hair, stopping him in his tracks.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I was just going to offer… if you really wanted to pay me back, so we’re even, you could give me a massage sometime.”

“A back massage?” Bellamy asks, his mind unhelpfully blank.

“Or a front massage,” she says, nonchalant. “I have a lot of kinks that need working out. Might need a hand or two.”

So she _is_ offering what it sounded like she was offering. Bellamy wets his lips.

“I’ve got hands,” he offers. The tension between them holds for a moment and then Clarke starts laughing.

“Here I thought you were supposed to be smooth.”

Bellamy sits up, tugging at her until she slides off the couch and into his lap. He gives her a searing kiss, mouthing along her jaw and biting gently at the elegant slope of her neck as she continues to laugh at him.

“I’ll show you smooth.”

Clarke hums, the sound lighter than he’s ever heard from her. “I wasn’t planning to collect right away—“

“This one can just be me having something to prove.”

She tugs his hair again, sharper this time. Bellamy groans and she shivers.

“This one?” She echoes, sealing her lips over his again like she’s afraid what he might say if she lets him answer.

So of course he has to say it anyway.

“It’s up to you, but it kind of seems like a waste to only do this the once.”

Clarke grins into his mouth.

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

“Really? I have a lot of things I’m hoping you’ll say.”

“Oh yeah?” She raises an eyebrow at him. “Then get to work, Blake.”

And they don’t speak much after that.


	4. 40. "Quick question: why is there a giant hole in the wall?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From [this](https://katchyalater.tumblr.com/post/172603529689/dialogue-prompts-what-will-you-give-me-if-i-win) list of prompts.
> 
> As prompted by @tracylorde on tumblr

“Quick question: why is there a giant hole in the wall?”

Clarke bites her lip and pauses Netflix. “I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t notice that.”

Scowling, Bellamy drops his bag on the floor and goes over to inspect the hole more closely. Clarke had attempted to cover it with a spare canvas but hadn’t been able to find one quite large enough for the misshapen blemish.

“So you were just going to wait until we didn’t get our deposit back to tell me?”

“Obviously not. I’m going to the hardware store tomorrow to get some plaster. I was going to fix it, and you were never going to be the wiser.”

“What the hell happened?”

“…there may have been a slight accident involving a new lamp and a poorly-timed phone call.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“What, would you have preferred I threw a punch?”

“I’d prefer it if there wasn’t a huge hole in the wall.” Bellamy comes over to where she has her feet propped up and drops down beside her, his hand automatically moving to rest on her rounded belly. “What were you even doing carrying things anyway? I thought we agreed I’d do the heavy lifting for a while.”

“It’s a _lamp_ ,” Clarke grumbles, nestling into his side. Even when she has trouble fitting into her clothes and her shoes and her old lifestyle, she still fits perfectly under Bellamy’s arm. “It’s light lifting if anything. Barely any lifting at all. And we needed it for next to the rocking chair so you can read the baby all your nerdy mythology books without having the overhead light on.”

His face softens, a smile tugging at his lips despite himself.

“And that couldn’t have waited until this weekend?”

“I’m pregnant, not an invalid. I can still do some things on my own.”

“Like put holes in our walls.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “And also patch up said holes. why do you keep focusing on the negative?”

“It’s what I do best.” He kisses her temple and picks up the remote. “Just promise me you won’t inhale too many fumes fixing what you broke.”

Clarke leans into him and lets her eyes drift shut. “You ruin all my fun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @apanoplyofsong pointed out that carrying a lamp truly is _light_ lifting and I need everyone to appreciate how hilarious that is because it cracked me up for like five minutes


	5. 21. "Did I ask for your opinion?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Season 5/canonverse!
> 
> Prompted by @hawthornewhisperer on tumblr from [this](https://katchyalater.tumblr.com/post/172603529689/dialogue-prompts-what-will-you-give-me-if-i-win) list.

“This plan is going to get us all killed.”

Clarke whirls to face him. “Did I ask for your opinion?”

Bellamy falters for a moment, then sets his jaw and crosses his arms over his chest. “You never had to ask for it before,” he grits out. “I know it’s been a while since we’ve done this, but I didn’t think things had changed that much.”

The ice-cold fury in Clarke’s eyes sets him aflame with frustration and uncertainty and something else he can’t name.

It’s not like he really thought Clarke would be the same after six years alone–or almost alone–on the ground. But he hadn’t prepared himself for it either. He’d spent six years grieving her, trying to honor her memory, her sacrifice. Not steeling himself to be faced with her iron will aimed in his direction.

“She’s my family, Bellamy.”

“And the people you’re asking to walk into a firefight are mine,” he snaps. “I’m not saying we just leave Madi vulnerable at the hands of the Eligius. I’m saying we come up with a better plan.”

“We don’t have time for a better plan!” Her voice is wild, a far cry from the control he remembers. Before he has quite reconciled the Clarke before him with the rational-minded one he used to know, she’s crossing the room and seizing up her rifle, slinging it over her shoulder determinedly.

“If you won’t come with me, I’ll go on my own.”

His blood runs cold. “No way. I’m not letting–”

“Let’s be clear.” She steps toward him, toe-to-toe, chest-to-chest, chin tilted in defiance. “You aren’t _letting_ me do anything.”

She starts to brush past him but he catches her arm. “Clarke, don’t do this.”

Her nostrils flare. “I don’t take orders from you.”

Jerking her arm free, she sets off across the compound, each step she takes ringing hollow in his chest. A memory of a conversation long past rises within him. _I can’t lose you too._ The answer that had reined him in when he’d tossed the same objection at her feet.

That argument may have stood a chance at convincing his Clarke, the Clarke he used to know. But he has no idea what effect it would have on the Clarke before him now, if any at all.

All the same, the words burn at the back of his throat.

_I can’t lose you again._

_I won’t._


	6. 50. "Why do you have a pair of my underwear in your drawer?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by @getoveryourselfmate on tumblr from [this](https://katchyalater.tumblr.com/post/172603529689/dialogue-prompts-what-will-you-give-me-if-i-win) list.

“Uh… Clarke?” Something in his tone makes the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. When she looks over to Bellamy, he’s staring aghast down into her miscellaneous-kitchen-items cabinet and in a flash, she knows what’s coming. “Why do you have a pair of my underwear in your drawer?”

“Girl’s night with Raven, a pitcher of margaritas, and a game of truth or dare?” She offers, certain that her face is _bright_ red.

Bellamy’s face is rather pink as well, but his cocky smirk is firmly in place when he meets her eyes.

“She dared you to put my underwear in with your corkscrew and pizza cutter?”

“She dared me to steal a pair of your underwear, obviously. I have no idea why drunk me thought it was a good idea to keep them in that drawer.”

A vague memory resurfaces of herself feeling too awkward to stick Bellamy’s boxer briefs in with her own boyshorts, lest she accidentally _put them on_ one morning, half asleep in a dark room. She’s proud of drunk Clarke for thinking ahead like that, but stashing her– _booty_ , as it were– in a semi-public place where her best friend was sure to spot them was not the best backup plan.

“How’d you get your hands on these?”

“Spare key. You were at Octavia’s, I think. Are we done talking about this yet?”

“Not a chance,” he scoffs, stepping closer. “You think you can just steal my unmentionables and I won’t have questions about it?”

“I thought you’d feel awkward and move the hell on,” she shoots back, the cool refrigerator behind her a nice balm for her sudden warmth.

“Why _my_ underwear?”

“I don’t know,” she lies. He shakes his head and takes another step toward her, because she’s never been able to fool him for long.

“Try again, Princess.”

“You’d have to ask Raven, it was her idea.”

“I’m asking you.” He steps toward her again, so close. Too close. He’s practically penning her in against the fridge, and it makes Clarke’s breath catch with reckless hope.

“You were an easy target,” she lies again. Bellamy shakes his head, his smile wry.

“Probably, but not for the reasons you think.” He leans in. Clarke can’t move. “You know,” he says, voice soft and rumbling, “If you really wanted my underwear, there were other ways to get it.”

“Ask nicely?”

Before she can follow that joke up with another, he brushes his mouth against hers, a quick, firm kiss that she needs more of immediately.

“That’s one option.”

Clarke fists a hand in his shirt and tugs him back in. He goes willingly, pressing her into the fridge door and kissing her far more thoroughly than before. She melts into it until she can’t stand it any longer, then gives him a gentle shove backward, toward her bedroom.

In the morning, when she gets up to pee, she sends Raven a snap of her bedroom floor, complete with an arrow identifying the black underwear Bellamy had been wearing the night before.

“From now on, only you get to see my underwear,” Bellamy grumbles as she tucks herself beside him. His arm snakes around her, tugging her closer to his warmth. “Raven can use her imagination.”

“Fair.” Clarke smiles and snuggles closer. “That’s fine by me.”


	7. 18. "Are you bleeding?" / 35. "I'm not leaving you behind."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Season 5/canonverse!
> 
> Prompted by an anon from [this](https://katchyalater.tumblr.com/post/172603529689/dialogue-prompts-what-will-you-give-me-if-i-win) list.

Over the sound of gunshots and dozens of people crashing through the underbrush, the sound that sticks with Bellamy as he goes down is Clarke screaming his name.

The next things he registers are a hill and the world spinning around him, his body hitting what feels like every rock in Eden on the way down, his legs colliding with Clarke’s and dragging her with him. It’s a speedy way to pull ahead of their pursuers but it knocks the wind out of him, Clarke’s hand scrabbling at his jacket to pull him up and behind a bush before anyone catches up with them.

“Are you alright? Are you bleeding?” Frantic, her hands unzip his jacket, nervously flitting across his chest like butterflies trying to decide where to land.

“I’m okay,” he rasps, wincing as he tries to get up. “Just bruised, I think.”

The panic doesn’t leave her expression.

“Where were you hit?”

“I wasn’t.” He catches her hands and squeezes them. “Just clumsy. There aren’t a lot of stray roots to watch out for up in space.”

She rests her forehead on their clasped hands and tries to slow her breathing.

“Good,” she says at last, withdrawing her hands and standing. “Come on, we need to keep moving. I didn’t want to lead them toward the Rover so we’ll have to circle back.”

“Smart thinking.”

When he goes to stand, to put weight on his right foot, his knees buckle. He would have wound up on his ass again if Clarke hadn’t caught him. The feel of her under his arm, her hands bracing him at his sides, reminds him so viscerally that she’s _alive_ that his knees almost give out again.

“Twisted my ankle,” he grits out, trying not to push her over as he shifts his weight onto his good foot. “Fuck. This is gonna slow us down.”

“You’re not shot.”

“I’m not, I swear.”

“Okay.” She nods, decisive. “Then let’s get going. We don’t need to be fast if we can be smart about it.”

“Being fast would help.”

“Argue with me about this when we’re somewhere safe,” she grumbles, slipping his arm over her shoulders and steering them away.

Bellamy tries to carry as much of his own weight as he possibly can but there’s a difference between being able to take the pain and his ankle being unable to support him. It’s painfully slow going, their only saving grace being Clarke’s familiarity with the terrain.

By the time they take a break, gulping down air as Bellamy lets a tree take his weight for a moment, he can tell they’re going to need a better plan than powering through.

Clarke seems to have come to the same conclusion, only their solutions differing.

“We need to splint your ankle.”

“Clarke–”

“If you can just get it under you without falling down–”

“ _Clarke_.” Her jaw snaps shut, her eyes daring him to argue with her. He’s never been good at denying her that. “This isn’t working.”

“Which is why we need to splint your ankle.”

“You should go.” His heartbeat pounds in his ears, every stray sound of the forest setting him on edge. He used to be a decent tracker, used to be able to discern the rustling of an animal from the footfall of an enemy, but he’s sorely out of practice. Every noise makes him jump, reminds him that they could be caught at any moment.

But there’s no reason they should both be caught.

“What?”

“You should get out of here. You’ll be faster on your own. I can find a place to hide–”

“No.”

Weary, Bellamy slides to the ground, the bark rough on his back. Clarke has begun scouring the ground, for something to make a splint from, he’d wager.

“Clarke–”

“I said no, Bellamy.” Materials in hand, she crouches before him, tugging his sock down. “Pull your pants leg up.”

“Clarke, please.” He grabs her wrist. “Please, just go.”

“I’m not leaving you behind.”

“I know you don’t want to.” His voice cracks. He’d left her behind once, and it almost killed him. “Believe me, I know.” She looks up at that, her determination wavering. He reaches out to tuck her short hair behind her ear, mostly because he can’t resist. “But you have to escape. If we both get caught, who’s gonna come save me?”

“Raven–”

“Won’t know what happened or where we’ve gone for a while still.” He swallows, knowing what he’s about to do is unfair. “Madi needs you. You need to run. Now.”

A shout in the distance makes them both flinch. Remembering the regrets he’d had last time they were in this position, Bellamy pulls her to him and plants a kiss on her forehead. Clarke clings to him, her hands squeezing the lapels of his jacket for a moment, and then tears away, stumbling back.

“May we meet again,” he offers with a rueful smile.

“We will,” she promises, fierce. He watches her back away, then dart off between the trees, and finds that his conscience is light. He makes a splint for his ankle– a worse one than Clarke would have, but it’ll work– and staggers to his feet, limping off in the opposite direction. With any luck, his trail will be clumsier and easier to follow, and he’ll buy Clarke enough time to get to the Rover and get the hell out of there.

When his friends do come for him, piling him into the passenger seat of the Rover a little more beat up than he had been on that hillside, Clarke is waiting behind the wheel, fury in her eyes.

“You’re a piece of work, Blake.”

He grins even though it hurts his split lip, lolling his head against the window where he can keep his eyes on her.

“I knew you’d come for me, Princess.”

“Don’t make me do it again.”

His laugh is no more than a puff of air, but her lips twitch when she hears it.

“You have yourself a deal.”


	8. 4. "The silent treatment? Really?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going with the assumption from now on that it's all the same prompt list unless otherwise noted. Have some exes angst!

“The silent treatment? Really?”

Bellamy presses his lips together in a tighter line and looks down at his hands wrapped around his drink. It’s the first time he’s seen Clarke since the breakup a couple of weeks ago, and while they had agreed to be amicable for the sake of their friend group, he’s had a little too much alcohol to safely enter into conversation with her. He’s not sure whether he’d pick a fight about her logic behind breaking up with him, or if he’d devolve into pathetic pleas for her to reconsider, but either way it’s probably best if he keeps his mouth shut.

Miller and Monty return from the bar before she can push any further, for which Bellamy is grateful. He must have been sending out some sort of distress signal.

“How are things at the museum?” Monty asks Clarke, because he’s Switzerland here. Miller is not giving Clarke the silent treatment exactly, but he’s never been verbose and Bellamy is sure his tension as he listens to Clarke rant about her incompetent coworkers hasn’t escaped her notice.

“I’m going to get some water,” he mumbles to his friend when she starts teasing Monty about his new true crime podcast obsession. How can she be so okay? How could the breakup not have affected her at all when he feels like an open wound?

Gina lets him drink a glass and a half before she shoos him back to his table, telling him he’ll regret it if he can’t find some way to keep a fraction of Clarke in his life. He takes a detour to the bathroom, then lingers by the TV for a few minutes, but has to eventually admit that she’s right, and heads back to the table.

He gets caught in the aisle as a group of girls wait for another bartender to clear the next booth over from his friends, and that’s when he hears it.

“–huge mistake,” Clarke is saying, her voice pulled tight like it does when she’s swallowing down emotion. “But what do I even say? ‘I changed my mind, I want you back’? It’s not fair to jerk him around like that.”

“Normally, I’d agree with you.” To his surprise, it’s Miller who speaks up. “But have you seen him tonight? He’s doing everything he can not to try to convince you to take him back. I’m not saying you don’t have shit to work out, but here’s a thought: you could work it out instead of pretending you’re not obviously miserable.”

Obviously miserable? If she’s miserable, it isn’t obvious to Bellamy.

The group between him and his booth clears but Bellamy is struck too dumb to move. Like a magnet, Clarke’s gaze flickers to him and her face pales.

“We’re gonna go,” Monty says quickly, herding Miller out of the booth. “See you guys later.”

Clarke swallows but doesn’t say anything. Miller claps him on the shoulder as he passes, the jump start Bellamy needs to slide back into the booth, his hands falling slack in his lap.

“How much of that did you hear?” She asks, tracing a finger through the condensation on her glass.

“Enough.”

“He speaks.” She bites her lip. “I’m so sorry, Bellamy. I know I don’t have any right to want you back, but I do, and if you want to just– yell at me and storm out and never speak to me again, I get that.”

“That’s not what I want.” He swallows. “You changed your mind?”

She shrugs one shoulder.

“Sort of. I’ve been so stressed the past few months, we’ve barely seen each other and every time we did I was– awful to you. You deserve better, and I still believe that. But I think I can do better, if you’ll have me.”

She looks so small, curved in on herself like she’s protecting her vital organs from a blow that might come at any moment, it makes his heart ache for both of them. For once, he can’t find the exact words he needs, so he stands and reaches for her. She goes immediately, letting him tuck her into his chest and wrapping her arms around him like he might vanish at any moment.

He’s pissed and his heart is still a little bit broken, but there will be time to work all of that out later. For now he holds her tight and breathes her in, letting their closeness do enough talking for the both of them.


	9. 19. "Quit making me laugh, I'm mad at you."

“Hey do you have a fig?”

Bellamy can’t not roll his eyes, but manages to keep his face in his textbook and stop any further reaction to Clarke’s insanity.

She kicks him under the table and he scowls at her before he can stop himself.

“What?”

“Do you have a fig?”

“Why would I have a fig?”

“Okay, then do you have a raisin?”

He squints at her suspiciously.

“Is this some kind of euphemism? Actually, it doesn’t matter, my answer is the same either way. No, I don’t have a raisin.”

She grins, and dammit. That was the answer she was going for.

“Then how about a date?”

He snorts and shakes his head. “Weak. And it’s not going to work.”

She leans forward and taps her pencil– one of those fancy-ass watercolor pencils he bought her for her last birthday that she’s been saving for her visual art final– against the ceramic handle of her coffee mug.

“Hey, Bellamy.”

“What.”

“Do you have a mirror in your pocket?”

“Stop asking me if I have random objects on my person.”

Clarke continues undeterred. “I only ask because I can see myself in your pants.”

His lips twitch but he shuts that shit down fast. Octavia always thought being cute would get her out of trouble too. He has decades of practice, although he’s a little less immune to his girlfriend’s antics than he is his baby sister’s.

“You wish, Princess.”

“I really do,” she hums, bumping her knee against his affectionately. He doesn’t move away but he tells himself it’s because he was there first. He’s standing his ground.

Someone maneuvering between tables behind him bumps the back of his head with their bag and Bellamy jolts forward, narrowly avoiding knocking his own coffee over.

“Are you okay?” Clarke asks, what sounds like genuine concern in her voice. He rubs the back of his head.

“I’m fine. Not even concussed.”

“Good.” She settles back in her seat and he makes the mistake of looking at her, a self-satisfied smile curled upon her lips. “It probably hurt a lot more when you fell from heaven.”

He huffs and manages to make it sound more like exasperation than a laugh.

“You’re _so bad_ at this.”

She grins. “I couldn’t let an opportunity like that pass me by!”

“How did you ever get me to go out with you in the first place?”

“90% boobs, 10% kicking your ass at beer pong.”

Bellamy thinks about it and if she flipped those percentages, it would be about right. He still can’t believe anything good ever came out of going to a frat party, but the proof before him is undeniable, even if he’s annoyed at her right now.

“Quit trying to make me laugh, I’m mad at you.”

“For the last time, I didn’t know it was the _last_ blueberry scone!”

“Did you see any other ones in the pastry case?”

“No, but I figured they had more in the oven or something. I couldn't have known they were out of blueberries.”

“I can’t study without my blueberry scone, Clarke. My whole routine has been thrown off, and being interrupted every two minutes doesn’t help.”

“Fine, fine,” she sighs. “I’ll stop bugging you.”

She mimes zipping her lips and for a while, there’s just the scratching of her pencils and words on a page swimming before his eyes. He puts his earbuds back in, hoping that drowning out the world around him will help him focus, but a crumpled napkin bouncing into his view startles him out of the zone.

He glares at Clarke, ready to throw it back at her, but she just grins and mimes unfolding it. When he does, he finds something written on it.

_Are you from Tennessee?_

He gives her his most unimpressed look, because he knows this one, but she mimes unfolding it again and he humors her.

_Because you’re an eleven._

Bellamy cracks up, Clarke’s spin on the expected “only ten-I-see” catching him so by surprise that he can’t stop the laughter bubbling inside of him. Her smile is delighted, even more so when he hooks his foot around hers under the table.

“You want to get out of here?” He asks, pulling his headphones out and stretching. “I can’t focus anyway. The day’s a wash.”

“I only came to keep you company in the first place.”

He catches her hand when they hit the sidewalk, a smile still on his lips. Come tomorrow, he’ll wish he’d put more effort into digesting the course material, but for now he has more important ways to spend his time.


	10. 32. "I'm pretty sure I'm cursed."

“I’m pretty sure I’m cursed.”

Clarke chokes on her water, raising one eyebrow as she glances over at her roommate, who has just walked in the door. He tugs his tie loose and flops down beside her on the couch, his hair mussing as he gets comfortable.

Sleeves rolled up, top button undone, the after-work dress-down is an easy look to pull off well. Even so, Clarke is partial to Bellamy’s version. He has nice forearms, okay? Just because she knows he’s a giant nerd doesn’t mean she’s immune to his good looks.

“Is this about Tinder?”

“Statistically, one of my dates should have gone well. Right?”

“Depends how you define ‘going well’.” She turns to face him, tucking her feet under her. Bellamy’s whole Tinder experiment had caught her off guard when he first started, and while she’s not a fan of him going out with different girls every weekend instead of watching bad movies on their couch, she’s come to terms with it.

(To be clear, she’s not opposed to Bellamy dating. She’s just opposed to Bellamy dating someone who isn’t her.)

“A second date wouldn’t be a bad place to start.”

She frowns. “You look like you’re in actual distress. You know you aren’t the problem, right? Tinder just isn’t working for you.”

“I disagree with your premise. The actual app interactions are the only successful part. It’s real-life me that they’re not interested in.”

It’s unfathomable to Clarke that anyone who is remotely interested in men wouldn’t be interested in Bellamy Blake. He’s her absolute favorite person– smart but not stuck up about it, funny (to a certain audience), intensely caring, unrealistically hot. She assumed it was obvious that he’s the best. She doesn’t know how anyone could have missed it.

“I really needed this to go well tonight,” he sighs when she doesn’t respond.

“What you need is a new strategy.”

“Oh yeah? What, like– be the guy who plays ukulele? The guy with ten thousand cats?”

“As your roommate, I’m vetoing more than two cats. But no, I meant–” She bites her lip, caught in his earnest gaze. “You should date me. I think that would go a lot better than random people from the internet.”

“Oh,” he breathes, stock-still for a beat, and then he’s sitting up straight, like he’s getting ready to bolt. Her stomach sinks. “I– yeah, I think you’re right. That would be– the ideal scenario, actually.”

Clarke’s laugh comes out weak. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He ducks his head. “I, uh– I only started the whole Tinder dating thing because I didn’t think you were interested. I figured it was time to try to move on.”

“I really hope you don’t,” she offers. He laughs and reaches for her, and the next thing she knows, he’s hovering over top of her, her lips numb from kissing and her fingers tangled in his hair.

She tugs on the knot of his tie as he starts kissing down her neck, giddy with how much she wants him, how sure she is that they’re going to be great. The tie gets stuck pulling it over his head and he has to pull back, laughing as she works it up and off. He looks happier than she’s ever seen him, a sort of pure joy that outshines his typical brand of wry amusement.

“Still think you’re cursed?” She murmurs against his lips when he leans down to kiss her again, slower this time.

“Hard to say,” he teases. “I haven’t gotten a first date yet, much less a second. I’ve got a pretty good feeling though.”

“Well, you know how to break a curse, don’t you? What all the stories say?” She catches his lips with her own, getting lost in the easy give and take.

“We should keep this up, then,” he husks.

Clarke hums and loops her arms over his shoulders.

“We definitely should,” she agrees, shifting comfortably beneath him. “Just to be safe.”


	11. 28. "I'm not letting you out of my sight."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Season 5/canonverse! Prompted by @catja.

The first time Clarke sees Bellamy in over six years, she nearly shoots him.

In her defense, the whole plan has devolved to chaos. There’s shouting everywhere, the sounds of combat and death overwhelming in a way she hasn’t felt in years. The new arrivals seem to be more of a shoot-first-ask-questions-later sort of crowd, and six years underground hasn’t cooled Grounder bloodlust as much as she would have hoped. It’s carnage on all sides, and she just wants to get in, get Madi, and get out.

Instead, she winds up pinned down under heavy fire behind a stack of crates, a hiding place so good someone crashes her party.

Her body registers _‘threat’_ before her mind registers _‘Bellamy’_. Between one breath and the next she has her rifle leveled in his face. His eyes widen. His hands float upward.

“Bellamy,” she breathes.

He looks older– broader and bearded and the best thing she’s ever seen. And staring at her as if she’s a ghost.

_“Clarke?”_

Nearby, something explodes. They startle apart, drawn unwillingly back into the moment.

“Raven?” She wonders.

“Who else?” He peers around the corner, flinching away when a barrage of bullets rains down upon their makeshift fortress. “We only have a few more charges. Weren’t able to rig up much else. Next time one blows, we should make a break for the tree line.”

Clarke cocks her rifle. “I can’t. They have my– This is a rescue mission for me, not an escape.”

His jaw works as he studies at her, calculating, though still with that haunted look in his eyes.

“I’m coming with you.”

“Bellamy, no. You should get to safety–”

“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” he says firmly, every bit the leader. Clarke’s throat closes up, her protests withering on her tongue.

“Okay,” she says, holding his gaze. Trapped in it. “Whatever happens, don’t die.”

He nods, staring at her like maybe he can’t look away either.

"That goes for both of us.”


	12. 6. "Well this is new."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by @whereevershegoes on tumblr.

“Well, this is new.”

Griffin doesn’t look up from her desk, likely not wanting to give him the satisfaction. He’s had a lot of partners on the force the past few years– he’s good with rookies and Captain Kane knows it– but he’s never had one quite as determined (or stubborn, depending on how you look at it) as Detective Griffin.

“You have something you want to say?” She grumbles as he unloads his jacket and bag, staring at her with what feels like tangible smugness. “Spit it out.”

“You’re here before me.”

“Yes.”

“You got up _early_.”

“World-class detective work there. Nothing gets past you.”

“Did you even know six a.m. existed? Or did you think it was some sort of conspiracy.”

“I have a Taser and I’m willing to use it.” She glares at him, moving the paperwork she was finishing onto a different pile.

“So you’re up early but you still aren’t a morning person. I guess that rules out the ‘who are you and what have you done with my partner’ shtick I was going to go for next.”

“I’ve never gotten to tase anybody before. I bet it’s fun.”

“Okay, okay.” He holds his hands up, smirking. “I’ll stop bugging you, I promise.”

“Thank you.”

“As long as you tell me why you’re here so early.”

Griffin purses her lips and he can tell she’s trying to decide whether answering the question will be encouraging his antics or get him off her back.

“My roommate’s snoring kept me up all night,” she says at last. “I figured if I was going to be awake anyway, I’d rather be here.”

Bellamy frowns. He knows what it looks like when his partner lies and she’s definitely telling the truth… only, something isn’t adding up. At last, it clicks.

“You don’t have a roommate.”

She freezes. _Gotcha_.

“Sure I do.”

“No you don’t. Remember that dog fighting case? You went back and forth for a week about adopting and in the end you decided that you weren’t home enough, and since you live alone, it wasn’t going to work out.”

Griffin’s glower could melt steel. Bellamy crosses his arms and gives it right back to her.

“It’s creepy that you remember that.”

“It’s my job to remember stuff about people. What’s really going on?”

“Nothing.” He can hear the tension in her voice and it saps all his good humor.

“Griffin.”

“Leave it alone, Blake.”

“Clarke.”

At the sound of her first name, her jaw snaps shut. She looks like she’s at war with herself again.

“Fine,” she huffs at last, capping her pen. “My apartment got broken into a few nights ago and it freaks me out to be alone there right now. Are you happy?”

“Why would I be happy about that? Are you okay? What happened?”

“I woke up in the morning and found my window broken and a bunch of shit missing. My Roku, my purse, some jewelry I had sitting on the bathroom counter. The place wasn’t trashed or anything, but– I could tell someone had been there.”

“Shit.” He sits up straighter, surveying her again even though he knows the damage is psychological. “I assume you reported it.”

“Yeah. Apparently there’s been a string of break-ins in the area. It’s already under investigation. But it’s so– violating. And it scares me that even with all my training, there’s nothing I could have done if they’d decided they wanted to do worse than steal from me.”

She isn’t looking at him anymore, and it tugs at him in the worst way. Clarke doesn’t usually back down from anything. It’s almost like she feels ashamed of being scared. Bellamy wants to tell her how unnecessary that is, but doesn’t think that’s what she needs right now. She needs normalcy, not pity. Which, in his case, means being a little bit of a dick.

“You know,” he offers at last, “The couch in the breakroom sucks to sit on, but it’s actually pretty comfortable for a nap. I can wake you up 15 minutes after our shift actually starts– you know, your usual starting time.”

She makes a face at him but seems to be considering it.

“You sure?”

“Am I sure I don’t want you falling asleep on the job? Um, yeah. I’m sure.”

“Thanks, Bellamy.”

She pauses in the doorway to the breakroom, twisting her lips to one side as she studies him. “Really,” she says. “Thanks.”

“I’m right out here if you need anything.” He pauses. “That goes for– I’m always here for you. Generally. Just– so you know.”

Her smile is tiny but genuine. “Yeah, I know. Get to work. I don’t want to be stuck behind a desk all day with nothing to do just because I’m way ahead of you on my paperwork.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles and waves her away.

She turns the lights in the breakroom off, but when he glances toward her he can just make out her silhouette in the shadows, curled up on her side with her jacket shoved under her head like a pillow. Big, bad Griffin looking smaller and more harmless than he’s ever seen. The thought makes him snort.

It isn’t long before he can make out the sound of her steady breathing, and that makes him smile too. He’s glad she feels safe enough here, with him in the bullpen keeping an eye out, to drift off.

He’s got her back.


	13. 6. "Well this is new." (II)

After he knocks, Bellamy shifts uncomfortably on his feet.

He should have texted her first. Or called. Or done anything other than just showing up at her apartment on their day off.  
Hearing movement on the other side of the door makes his stomach squirm. It’s too late now to run away, and that would (understandably) creep her out anyway. No, he has to stick it out now.  
When Clarke-- because after this week, he keeps slipping up in his mind and calling her by her first name-- opens the door, she looks surprised to see him, but not unhappy. She’s wearing a paint-stained t-shirt and her hair piled in a sloppy bun atop her head, more casual than he’s ever seen her.

And dark circles under her eyes, still. Which reminds him why he’s here.

“Bellamy?” She frowns. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” He clears his throat and looks down at the bag in his hands. “I just, uh-- was in the neighborhood and... I brought you something.” He thrusts the bag at her, the back of his neck growing hotter with each awkward second that passes. “Here.”

Clarke takes it from him, her curiosity softening to something else when she looks inside.

“You bought me a window alarm,” she says in an unreadable tone.

Bellamy kicks himself. She’s not incapable; she probably already did this for herself. And if she didn’t, surely she had a good reason. He’s overstepping. He’s an idiot.

“It’s no big deal,” he says quickly. “I helped my sister set hers up when she moved into her first apartment, so-- I had already done all the research and everything, and I know this is a good brand...” He trails off, the heat spreading to his cheeks as she watches him with amusement. “Feel free to tell me to fuck off at any time.”  
Clarke laughs, the expression lighting up her face.

“I’m glad you think this is a good brand because I actually bought the same ones yesterday.”

"Oh. Well, you can-- keep those anyway, I guess. Can never be too safe.”

“Thanks for not rescinding your gift,” she teases. “You said you helped your sister set them up?”

“Yeah.”

She nods once, then pushes the door to her apartment open wider, a clear invitation.

"I was just about to install mine. Might be nice to have an expert handy, if you have the time?”

“Sure.” Bellamy ducks his head, hiding a smile. “I don’t know that I’m an expert, but I bet between the two of us, we can figure it out.”

“Yeah,” Clarke smiles back. “I bet we can.”


	14. 46. "When was the last time you slept?"

“I found one!”

Clarke pauses mid-sentence, surveying the frantic, harried mess of a person who just barged into her office, brandishing his phone in one hand and rucking up his hair into even more of a mess than it already was. “I’ll call you back,” she says, and hangs up, frowning at Bellamy. “You look terrible.”

“I found one,” he repeats, glowering. “I didn’t even have to look very hard. It was right there in front of me!”

“What did you find?”

“A death threat.”

She gapes. “Someone sent you a death threat?”

“Someone sent _Octavia_ a death threat.”

“And they CC’ed you on it?” Clarke asks, coming around to lean against the front of her desk.

She still feels like she’s a step behind, though she should have expected his frenzied state and dramatic arrival had something to do with his sister’s recent arrest and subsequent firing from the Disney Channel show she’d had a season regular spot on for the past two years.

As her agent, Clarke has done a pretty kick-ass job of spinning the assault charge in Octavia’s favor– the guy had been verbally harrassing her group of friends all night, following them from bar to bar with a persistence Clarke is sure he thought was endearing. Just because Octavia threw the first punch (and gave worse than she got, despite being half the guy’s size), she now has a record and a one-way ticket to court-mandated anger management courses.

No matter how noble her cause, getting arrested was a violation of her contract with the family-friendly entertainment company, and plenty of parents and trolls alike had Opinions about it. And about her worth as a person.

None of which seems to bother Octavia, but Clarke isn’t surprised by how much the whole thing is stressing Bellamy out. He’s a world-champion fretter.

“They tweeted it at her. I’m not going to break into her email, Clarke.”

“You wouldn’t know how,” she agrees. “Let me see it.”

He passes his phone over and slumps onto her couch, throwing an arm across his eyes like the theater kid she’s sure he was.

The tweet _is_ pretty vile, so Clarke reports it and blocks the user from Bellamy’s account, then makes a mental note to block it from Octavia’s twitter as well.

“There,” she says, passing the phone back to him. “All better.”

“What? What did you do?”

“Made it so you can’t see anymore.”

His glare is entirely toothless when framed by the dark circles under his eyes, and while it would be a simple fix to un-block the offender, she’s pretty sure he doesn’t know how to do that either. He’s endearingly hopeless when it comes to technology.

“That doesn’t mean Octavia won’t see it.”

“I’ll block him on her account too.”

“That doesn’t fix the problem, Clarke! She’s–”

“Nineteen and a legal adult. And she allowed you to hire her a bodyguard, which is more than I thought she’d do, knowing her.”

Privately, Clarke is pretty sure the muscles and tattoos on said bodyguard are what convinced Octavia, but that’s probably not what Bellamy needs to hear right this second. He doesn’t need one more thing to worry over.

“And she’s still getting death threats. _Daily_.”

“Hence the bodyguard.” She sits beside him and brushes hair out of his eyes before she can stop herself. He leans into her touch, so she keeps at it, smoothing down the parts that are a little too mad-scientist for her liking, scratching his scalp comfortingly. “When was the last time you slept?”

“I don’t know.” He sighs, pushing up his glasses to rub at his eyes like it just occurred to him how tired they are. “I spent several hours defending her honor on her Facebook fan page last night. I’m not sure I actually slept at all, come to think of it.”

Clarke shakes her head and cards her fingers through the hair at the base of his neck.

“You should take a nap.”

“I can’t, I need to go report that guy to the police.”

“I’ll make sure it gets where it needs to go,” she promises, voice soft like she might be able to trick him into sleeping. His eyelids droop. “Please? It’ll make me feel better.”

And then she knows she has him, because if it’ll make someone else– someone he cares about– feel better, he’d do just about anything.

“I guess I could– rest up for more internet arguments.”

“Good.” She stands and he starts to follow her but she pushes down on his shoulders and he falls back onto the couch in surprise. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Home to sleep?”

“No way. You’re staying right here where I can confiscate this–” she snatches his phone, yanking it out of his reach when he swipes for it half-heartedly, “and make sure you actually get some shut-eye.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Good, because your parents didn’t leave me any pizza money,” she deadpans, stepping closer and smoothing his hair again. “Please just try? For me?”

Letting out a shaky breath, he leans into her, resting his forehead on her stomach and wrapping his arms around her. Clarke puts her arms around him in return, burying her face in his unruly mop of hair. She doesn’t know when he made the leap in her mind from overinvolved-stage-parent to someone she aches for when he’s feeling shitty, but she can suss it out later. When he’s better rested and more receptive to her advances.

She kisses his head and pats his shoulder. “Seriously, get some sleep or I’m getting the chloroform.”

“Fine,” he mumbles, letting her step out of his hold. She makes herself go back to her desk and settle in, but she’s watching from the corner of her eye as he lies down on his back and lets out a tense breath.

An hour or so later, his phone buzzes quietly, melding with the sound of his gentle snores. When she glances at it out of instinct, she finds herself faced with a photo from the Teen Choice Awards last season, one of Bellamy’s arms wrapped around his sister, the other resting casually upon her own shoulders. All three of them are grinning, and Clarke remembers vividly the warmth and weight of Bellamy’s hand on her waist.

Maybe when he wakes up, she’ll take him to dinner, she decides. He could use a distraction. Something nice.

She thinks it’s just what he needs.


	15. 44. "I feel like it's all my fault." / 34. "That was a disaster."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted separately on tumblr. Prompts from anonymous and @craniumhurricane

“Was it awful?”

Bellamy tenses up at the question, both dreading Clarke’s answer and desperate to hear it. He hadn’t had the guts to ask it himself, but Raven has never shied away from sensitive topics.

“I mean, I know you had the kid,” she continues. “But it had to be hard.”

Madi got sent to bed hours ago but the rest of them are too overwhelmed, too excited and terrified to be back on earth to feel much like sleeping. The light of the campfire casts flickering shadows over Clarke’s expression, making it unreadable. Every now and then the golden glow illuminates a patch of scarring that trails up her neck and spills across her jaw. Burns sustained from the death wave, she’d told him, tone brusque, when she caught him staring at it earlier. Long-healed for her, but fresh wounds on Bellamy’s conscience.

“It was hard,” Clarke agrees, looking down at her empty cup. “Some days, I couldn’t even–”

Her voice breaks, a mirror of the tear that rips through his heart.

“But some days were better than others,” she finishes at last, never seeing her original thought out to its conclusion, for which Bellamy both is and isn’t grateful.

She’d told them about the good days: the day she found Madi, the day she found Eden. Getting the Rover to work again. Finding a stream with drinkable water. Building their home.

She hasn’t touched on the bad days yet, though Bellamy knows there had to have been at least as many of them as the good, if not more. And from the deflection she uses now, he wonders if she isn’t ready to talk about them.

If maybe she blames him as much as he blames himself.

“That’s Earth for you,” Monty says, quiet.

Clarke gives a jerky nod and stands, brushing her hands on her pants. “I’m gonna go check on Madi.”

A few of them murmur their understanding but whatever words Bellamy might have at his disposal are dammed up behind the lump in his throat. He watches her go and braces himself against the heaviness that settles over their group.

“She seems upset about something,” Murphy observes, sarcasm oozing from his tone. “Can’t put my finger on it, though.”

“Should one of us go after her?” Harper wonders. A few of them glance in Bellamy’s direction but he’s too busy staring at his boots and trying to wrangle his emotions under control to follow through on the suggestion.

Besides, he’s probably the last one she wants to see right now. He was the one who made the decision to leave her behind. Whatever horrific things she has endured, she’s only faced them because of him.

“I feel like it’s all my fault,” Raven mutters into the silence. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

Bellamy shakes his head. At last, the words rise up like bile in his throat.

“It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

No one knows what to say to that.

For a long time, there’s only the crackling of the fire and shocked, uncertain expressions. At last he gets up and tosses the remainder of his drink into the grass, mumbling something about turning in before ambling back toward his makeshift tent.

Sleep doesn’t come for him. When he closes his eyes, all he can see are those scars, the burns they must have come from. Clarke’s face contorted in pain.

Guilt burrows deep into his heart, into that familiar place where it makes its home. He lets it in.

 _Who we are and who we need to be to survive are very different things,_ he’d told Clarke once. Now he’s not so sure. He’ll always be the person who left the girl he loved behind to suffer, and now he has to live with that.

* * *

"Well, that was a disaster.”

Murphy’s mutter nearly gets lost in the pain roaring in Bellamy’s ears. They’ve got the bleeding under control, but the pressure Murphy is applying to do so is less than comfortable, and that’s without taking into account every bump and jolt of the Rover’s wheels on the uneven terrain.

“He’s right,” Monty says. “As plans go, this one was pretty solid. I thought we were gonna have to work really hard to screw it up.”

“I’m not surprised,” Raven says, her tone strained with the effort of keeping the worry from it. “If anything, I would’ve thought you’d get shot way before now. You’ve got a talent for pissing people off.”

“Hey, I thought that was my talent,” says Murphy, indignant. As he turns his attention to Raven he inadvertently shifts his hold.

Bellamy can feel the bullet digging deeper into his shoulder and swears loudly, something he’s been trying not to do with Madi in the front seat beside Clarke. Somewhere outside of his body on red alert and his friends bickering to keep the tensions from rising, he can hear a childish giggle and it makes him wish he could work up a smile.

“Shut up you big baby,” Murphy scoffs. “You’re not dying. You’ve had way worse than this. Remember that time I hanged you?”

“Not helpful, John.”

“You weren’t there. I was totally justified.”

Emori says something else but Bellamy is focusing on breathing through his clenched jaw and trying not to think about the one voice missing from the clamor.

Clarke is silent for the whole drive. She’s out and slamming her door behind her before Bellamy has even registered that the Rover has stopped moving. Madi scampers after her as the others help Bellamy out of the back and over to the main room of Clarke’s house.

From the way they immediately scatter, he can tell he is’nt the only one who has picked up on her mood.

She slams cabinets and trunks as she gathers her materials to stitch him up, the anger rolling off of her in waves. It’s only when she takes her time ripping bandages into longer, thinner strips that he realizes she’s avoiding his eyes. Something she never used to do.

“Clarke,” he says tiredly. Her next rip is more vicious, more desperate. “Clarke--”

“What the hell were you thinking?” Her eyes snap to his and instead of ice, he finds fire. She blazes with anger like he’s completely unused to from her, an emotion-based rage that, now that they’re alone, she gives herself over to. “What was that, Bellamy?“

“The negotiations were--”

“Falling apart? Blowing up in our faces?”

“They were testing us, Clarke. I was sticking with the strategy--”

"Some test,” She scoffs, stepping closer and tugging his shirt up and off, practically ripping it over his head as fiercely as she had the bandages. He hisses when it jerks his arm in a painful direction but she doesn’t even flinch. “This gunshot wound looks pretty real to me.”

“Would you rather I have let you take it, then?”

His words slice through the anger in the air, so sharp he almost regrets them. She dabs at the wound with something that burns, avoiding his gaze again. Bellamy sighs and lets his head drop back against the wall.

“I thought we had them,” he says at last. “I thought we could outsmart them. Or talk them down. Solve this with our heads, rather than taking lives.”

Clarke shakes her head, fuming.

“I could see it in their eyes, Bellamy. They made up their minds before they ever got to that clearing. You should have trusted me when I wanted to back out. You shouldn’t have _stepped in front of a bullet for me._ If this was a test for us, what have they learned?”

They’d given away a lot, Bellamy knew. Their resources, their numbers, the direction in which they’d fled. But none of it feels as monumental as what he himself gave up: his weaknesses. The fact that all they’d have to do to break him would be to point their weapons in Clarke’s direction.

“It was a reflex,” he says at last, voice low. Clarke is gentler with the tweezers, luckily, than she had been with the rags, but it still hurts like hell to have her digging around beneath his skin to get the bullet out. Once it plinks into the tray, she dabs at the injury again, more tenderly this time.

“Then you need better impulse control,” she says, but her voice has lost some of its fight.

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. But I won’t apologize for taking a bullet with your name on it. I’d do it all over, no question.”

She’s so close he can hear her breath catch, see her swallow. Her eyes flicker up to meet his.

“Bellamy--”

“I couldn’t let it be you who got hurt. Not for choices I made. Not for anything.” He takes a shaky breath. “Not again.”

He places a hand over hers on his shoulder, his fingers curling around her wrist and finding her pulse thrumming fast and undeniably alive. His other hand cups her neck, his thumb tracing the scars on her jaw. She holds perfectly still beneath his touch.

“It’s not your fault,” she tells him at last, leaning into his hand with a shudder. “I need you to hear me on this, Bellamy. I’m glad you didn’t wait for me. You never would have made it in time. You wouldn’t be here today for me to be pissed as hell at.”

He stays silent, stays still.

“You did what you had to do,” she tells him, tone leaving no room for argument. “And if you need forgiveness, you already have it.”

She rests her forehead against his and they stay like that for a moment, Bellamy’s heart piecing back together in ways he thought it never would again.

There are many things he still wants to say to her, things that have burned within him so strongly and for so long that he’s surprised he hasn’t been reduced to ash. But as the weight he’s been carrying for the past six years finally lifts from his shoulders, he knows they’ll keep a little longer.

For now, this right here is all he needs.


	16. 48. "You can't just kiss me and then act like it never happened!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from millipop and anonymous on tumblr

Bellamy studiously does not look up from the sizzling pan when he hears Clarke let herself into his apartment. He doesn’t think he visibly reacts at all, though his pulse does pick up the pace. Which is stupid. He _knew_ Clarke was coming over. She always comes over on Thursdays. And Mondays. And whenever else she feels like it.

It’s a both a perk of living across the hall from the person he’s in love with and also probably the reason his crush flourished into something so much deeper. He was never like this when he had a crush on his bartender, or when he had that ill-advised flirtationship with Octavia’s coworker, probably because he only saw them about once a month, if that often. Clarke he sees several times a week, and the longer he goes without seeing her, the grumpier and more curmudgeonly he is.

The con of living across the hall from the person he’s in love with is, of course, how awkward it would be if he ever made a move she didn’t reciprocate, and things became awkward between them. He would still see her all the time-- they ride the same bus to work, keep leftovers in each other’s fridge, even have enough overlap in their friend groups that their social lives are starting to meld into one.

So no matter how in love with her he was, he had resolved not to make a move until he was more certain of how she felt. More sure nothing would get ruined in the fallout.

A solid plan, and one that Drunk Bellamy promptly ignored last night when Clarke made eye contact for a little too long, a little too close, and he kissed her.

(He wasn’t so drunk he forgot that she kissed him back. But for all he knows, he was a convenient warm body, someone she didn’t mind making out with, but not someone she wanted anything more from. He’s trying to manage his expectations.)

“Hey.”

“Hey.” He turns to flash her a smile over his shoulder. She’s leaning in the doorway to the kitchen wearing flannel pajama pants and a tank top that should not be allowed, looking soft and perfect. He turns back to the pan before his gaze can linger too long. “How do you feel about tacos?”

"I feel great about tacos.”

He hears her walk closer and prods at the sizzling ground beef. “Good day?”

She hums, her voice so close behind him. “It was alright. I was pretty distracted.”

Bellamy snorts. “My students kept trying to get class outside today. I feel like I spent the entire day fighting them on it, and it just made the day a wash anyway.”

Clarke pauses and he can practically hear her thinking, dissecting everything about their interaction so far.

“Yeah, it was pretty nice out today,” she says at last, slow and uncertain. “But that’s not really what was distracting me.”

“No?”

Her pause is even longer this time.

“I can’t tell if you’re playing dumb or if you’re trying to give me the brush-off.”

Bellamy flinches and looks at her, finally. She’s frowning which is-- not ideal. He wets his lips and readies himself. Time to face the music, then.

“I’m trying not to get my hopes up,” he admits, running a nervous hand through his hair. “I thought if I showed you things could still be normal between us, you’d-- let me down easy, I guess.”

Her frown has cleared now and she’s looking at him so fondly there’s no room for doubt left in his mind.

"Did it ever occur to you I might not be letting you down at all?” She teases, hooking her fingers in his belt loops and tugging him toward her before he can answer. This time there’s no alcohol fuzzying the kiss, no couch forcing awkward angles, no desperation on his side that he might never get to do this again.

In fact, it sounds like he’s going to get to do this a lot.

Her lips are soft and firm, her hands linking at his lower back as if she worries that if she lets go he’ll float away. Bellamy pours his heart into the press of his lips, his hand in her hair, the rise and fall of his chest against hers. He’s not about to break this moment for anything, not even for any sort of confession, so he tries to make sure she knows just from the kiss itself.

Clarke, it would seem, has no such qualms. She tears herself away too soon for his liking, biting at his lower lip reproachfully.

“You can’t just kiss me and act like it never happened!” She grumbles, holding him away from her so she can finish her reprimand. “Seriously, I thought you were _rejecting_ me. But it was your idea in the first place! I couldn’t think about anything else all day--”

Laughing, Bellamy leans in to kiss her cheek, her neck, grinning when she arches it toward him.

“Sorry, sorry. I promise I’ll never try to play it cool again.”

“Good. That was never going to work anyway, you’re too much of a nerd.” She lets him have her lips again, both of them losing themselves in it until oil pops from the pan and hits him in the arm.

“Is it acting like it never happened if I tell you to go get the plates out so we can eat?”

Clarke rolls her eyes and pushes away from him, her hands lingering on his chest a little too long in a way that makes him incredibly smug. “I don’t know, I’m getting pretty mixed signals.”

He catches her arm on her way past him again, pressing a fleeting kiss to her lips.

“Let me know if you need me to clear it up.”


	17. Canonverse; Madi & Bellamy do something special for Clarke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from obviesbellarke on tumblr!

“I wanna do something for Clarke.”

Bellamy pauses with his cup halfway to his lips. He’s always been a naturally early riser, something Clarke definitely isn’t, so he’s the one who tends to eat breakfast with Madi most mornings.

One of the many reasons, he assumes, everyone looks at them like they’re a family unit, rather than what they really are: one Clarke-and-Madi, and one Bellamy. Two very distinct units.

He might love Clarke– might have for a long time now– and he might love Madi in no small part because she is Clarke’s family now, but he knows he’s still separate in the ways that count. Clarke trusts his judgment, comes to him with her parenting insecurities and frets to him over her decisions, but they’re still that: _her_ decisions. He doesn’t get an equal say, nor does he feel as if he should.

He can care about Madi and protect her and spoil her, argue with Clarke when he doesn’t think she’s making the right call, and enforce Clarke’s decisions when she isn’t around and Madi pulls pre-teenage rebellion shit.

He can be Clarke’s partner in all things, now that they’ve found their way back to seeing eye-to-eye. But he can’t be her co-parent until she and Madi explicitly invite him into that role. No matter how many times Miller calls him ‘papa bear’ or Raven jokes that his wife is looking for him. No matter how badly he wants it to be true.

Still, he’s the obvious choice when it comes to the conversation Madi is apparently looking to have, so he says, “What kind of something?” When it doesn’t seem like she’s going to continue unprompted.

“Something nice.”

His eyes narrow. “Why?”

The look Madi gives him is one that says, _maybe I should have gone to someone else with this, you absolute buffoon._

“Because she’s my– she takes care of me. She always does stuff for other people, and nobody ever does stuff for her.” She pauses to think this over. “Well, you do sometimes. But you don’t count.”

“I don’t?” He raises one eyebrow, amused.

“No, you both do things for each other. It already balances out.”

Bellamy snorts. “And we wouldn’t want to be so nice to Clarke that things get out of balance. Can’t have that.”

“That’s sarcasm, right? Raven is teaching me about that.”

“I’ll bet she is,” he mumbles under his breath. “What kind of nice thing do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.” She bites her lip. “I was hoping you’d have some ideas.”

“I guess it depends how nice you want to be.” He clears his throat, leans back on his hands to think. It was Abby’s birthday not too long ago, her first since being reunited with her daughter, since meeting her granddaughter and everything with the Eligius settling down. They’d had a family dinner: Abby and Marcus, Clarke and Madi, Raven, Jackson, and Bellamy, who had been more than touched to receive an invitation.

Madi has some few, precious memories of her family from before the end of the world, but he’s sure that seeing Marcus give Abby flowers, seeing Raven surprise them with swindled sweet berry wine and Clarke retelling fond memories of her mother from her childhood, was at least in part the catalyst for wanting to extend the same appreciation to Clarke.

Either that, or she just wants a party.

“We could pick her some flowers,” Madi says, tone dubious. “But they’d just die in a few days. And we don’t even know if they’ll grow back yet. Clarke says everything is still really new.”

“Part of the trick of good gift-giving is thinking about what kind of gifts the person you’re giving them to would like. You’re on the right track, thinking about how Clarke would feel.”

Madi glows with the praise, sitting up straighter.

“So I should think about what kind of stuff Clarke likes.”

“Yeah.” He has to smile at her serious expression. Even something fun and a little bit frivolous like gift-giving, she treats like a life and death matter. He knows where she gets that from. “You basically have two options: an object you can find or make for her, and an action you can do for her.”

Madi frowns at the dirt, shoving her hair out of her face as she considers her options. Her intricate braids are in disarray from being slept on, like they usually are. Bellamy scoots toward her and turns her away from him, releasing her braids and combing his fingers through her hair as she thinks.

“She really likes the berries that used to grow next to the house,” she says at last. Then, as he starts to plait the dark strands, “Can you do them really tight? They were falling out a lot yesterday.”

“They fell out yesterday because you wanted me to get fancy,” he grumbles, but obliges in tightening his grip as he weaves pieces together. “Berries are a good start. Back on the Ark– the first time, that is– we would sometimes bring people their breakfast when they were just waking up. So they didn’t have to worry about making it themselves or getting dressed for a little while longer.”

“That sounds good. Clarke hates getting out of bed.”

“I’m well aware.”

She’s quiet for another moment, thinking this plan through.

“Berries are good but they’re not that special. I want to do something better.”

“You could pick a chore she hates doing and do it for her.”

“She really hates washing clothes. We could do that for her.”

“Oh, it’s we now?” He teases, tying her braid off and tugging on it teasingly. “I thought I was off the hook because I’m already so nice to her.”

Madi rolls her eyes. Another thing she probably learned from Raven. Or Murphy. Bellamy has to admit, she has lots of potentially bad influences.

“I thought you’d want to help but you don’t have to. I can probably do laundry by myself.”

“I have some of my own to do anyway,” he shrugs. “I might as well supervise.”

“Whatever you say.”

He laughs, surprised. “Who’s the sarcastic one now?”

They agree to put their plans into motion the next day, even getting Monty on board to distract Clarke annd keep her from working while they’re taking care of the dirty clothes.

Bellamy helps Madi arrange the berries and some bread and meat on a tray they found, but he doesn’t go with her to bring it in to Clarke. Instead he gets his own chores out of the way and tries not to think about slotting in next to Clarke on her bed, Madi curling into her side. The three of them laughing together and spending a lazy morning just enjoying each other’s company.

Seriously, he doesn’t think about it. It makes him ache too much for things he doesn’t get to have.

When Madi comes to meet him, her hair is frizzed up again, slipping from the neat arrangement he’d done for her that morning.

“You take a nap there, bed head?” He teases, tucking a strand back into its plait. She glowers and bats his hand away.

“I didn’t fall back asleep. It’s just– been a while since we it was really just the two of us.”

His teasing smile gentles, because he’s a complete and total sap.

“I’m glad you guys got to do that. I bet you she likes that part of today even more than the rest of what you have planned.”

“I don’t know, she _really_ hates laundry.”

They get clothes washed and hang them up to dry behind Bellamy’s cabin, where Clarke won’t see them yet. Then he sends Madi on her way, where Abby is waiting to help her restock Clarke’s medical kit. They didn’t have to twist her arm to get her involved; as soon as she heard what they were planning, she wanted in.

Bellamy suspects she feels as if she has six years of lost time, lost love to make up for. He can relate.

They return mid-afternoon, faces flushed with exertion and triumph. Bellamy goes to meet them but he’s not the only one.

“Where have you two been?” Clarke is asking when he ambles up, her eyes narrowed and her arms crossed over her chest. Which, honestly, should be illegal.

“What,” Abby says, mock-offended. “I’m not allowed to spend a little time with my granddaughter?”

Clarke frowns, chastened. “Of course you are.” Her gaze slides to Madi. “But I still think you’re up to something.”

“Nothing bad, I promise.”

“That’s what you said that time with the bees, too.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, come on, Clarke,” Bellamy goads her, slinging an arm around Madi’s shoulders. “Where’s the trust?”

Her disgruntled expression deepens, that familiar furrow appearing between her brows. “I should’ve known you were in on this.”

“Trust,” he reminds her. “Would I let anything bad happen to you or Madi?”

A strange look overtakes her face, one he can’t read.

“Fine,” she huffs at last. ‘Keep your secrets. See if I care.”

She stalks off toward medical, still grumbling to herself. Bellamy shoots Madi an apologetic look.

“Sorry kid. I probably wasn’t supposed to wind her up today, huh?”

“It’s okay,” she shrugs, pragmatic. “I think she secretly likes arguing with you, so I’m not worried it’ll ruin her day. You think the laundry is dry yet?”

“Uh– yeah. Worth checking, at least.”

By the time they get the clothes folded and put away, Madi’s stomach is gurgling.

“Guess it’s time to go find Clarke,” she says, making a face when her stomach makes another noise. “And food. Food would be good.”

“Clarke yes, food no.” He laughs at her outraged expression. “Go get her and meet me by the gates. I have a little surprise of my own for both of you.”

Either Madi trusts him more than Clarke when it comes to surprises, or she’s smart enough to realize she won’t get her meal until she follows through on her end of the deal because that’s all it takes to send her scampering off. Bellamy has just enough time to gather the things he needs before Clarke comes stumbling up, Madi pulling her by the hand.

“Okay we’re here,” she says, looking up at Bellamy expectantly. “What’s the surprise?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise, would it?” He hitches his backpack higher. Clarke’s eyes flicker to it, then back to his face, amusement in her eyes.

“You guys are being so weird today.”

“We’re trying to show you we appreciate you,” he tells her, starting off toward the woods. Madi follows in a heartbeat and it only takes another few paces for Clarke to fall in step with them.

“By being weird? Can I offer some constructive criticism?”

Bellamy looks at Madi. “You want to tell her what we were up to today?”

And then she’s off, chattering a mile a minute as she recounts their decision-making processes and all the sneaking around they’d had to do to get their plans accomplished. He catches Clarke’s eye when Madi is in the middle of explaining how she was more of an expert on Eden’s medicinal plants than Abby was. Her eyes are a bright blue, a well of fondness so deep he can’t tell how far down it really goes.

Tentatively, he lets the back of his hand brush the back of hers, his heart stuttering when she catches two of his fingers with hers. They aren’t holding hands, not really, but it’s close enough for hope to inflate within his chest.

Madi either doesn’t notice or doesn’t find it noteworthy enough to interrupt her storytelling. In fact, the only thing that brings her to abrupt punctuation is when Bellamy pulls up short and says “Here we are.”

She bites down on her next words, turning to look at the forest around them, scanning it for something special.

“Where?” She asks at last.

“You’ll see.” Regretfully, he has to let go of Clarke’s hand to divest himself of his backpack, but when he unrolls a thin blanket, spreading it out on the ground before them, the excitement in her eyes is more than enough to make up for it.

“You packed us a picnic,” she guesses, seating herself in one corner of the blanket and beginning to undo the laces on her boots.

“A picnic?” Madi frowns.

“A meal you eat outside.”

“So… every meal we’ve ever had.”

Clarke opens her mouth. Shuts it. “Okay, good point. A picnic is a meal outside, but somewhere you don’t normally eat it. Somewhere special.”

“And if you keep arguing,” Bellamy puts in, cutting off the next protest as she opens her mouth again, “You’ll be too busy to eat, so– try to keep your priorities straight here.”

“You’re right,” Madi says, taking the carefully wrapped dinner from him and inspecting it with equal parts curiosity and hunger. “It can be a picnic if you say it’s a picnic.”

He snorts. “Thanks ever so much.”

“You’re welcome.”

It’s a warm night, still far enough into summer that the sun stays up all the while they’re eating, but close enough to the autumn that they aren’t sweating sitting still. As dusk settles around them, quiet in the forest, the real reason Bellamy picked this spot becomes clear.

Madi is the first to notice them, gasping when one alights on the blanket a few inches from her knee. She cups her hands around it, bringing it close to her face so she can peek through the seams of her fingers and see the glowing creature inside them.

"Look,” she tells Clarke, offering her hands to her.

Clarke looks obediently, then casts an awed glance to Bellamy. “Lightning bugs?”

“Or fireflies. Whatever you want to call them,” he nods, grinning as more begin to flash around them. Madi opens her hands and lets the poor thing go, laughing as they watch it fly away.

“Okay,” she grants them, standing and turning in a circle as she tries to see them all at once. “Picnics are pretty fun.”

“Told you.”

“Don’t be smug,” Clarke says, shifting closer, and closer still, until Bellamy can reach out and wrap his arm around her waist. She doesn’t object, so he tugs her closer, tucking her into his side. Her head falls to his shoulder, both of them watching as Madi chases the fireflies around the small clearing. In a world that has hardened him and his friends, has given them sharp edges and thick skin, it makes his breath catch to watch the last vestiges of childlike wonder overtake her. To hear her laugh and see her grin at something so simple.

“Thank you,” Clarke says quietly. He can tell she’s thinking the same thing. “For today. For every day. For making her eat breakfast and braiding her hair, and playing along with her schemes.”

“Always,” he promises, resting his chin against her temple, letting his eyes fall shut. Letting himself have this, if only for a moment.

“I’m glad she feels like she has someone else to turn to if she can’t come to me.”

“She does.” He pulls back and when she lifts her chin to meet his eyes this time, he thinks the well might go all the way down to her heart. “Both of you do, Clarke. Today might have been her idea, but– I hope you know how much you mean to both of us. Not just Madi.”

She holds his gaze for a couple of heartbeats, and then she’s leaning in, feathering her lips across his so light he almost thinks he imagined it. But when she pulls away again, she’s blushing.

“I think I’m beginning to.”

He smiles, can’t help it. Just like she’s helpless not to return it, settling back into his arms and turning toward Madi so he can’t see the look on her face anymore. He can still see the heat rising on the back of her neck, and can’t resist leaning forward to press his lips against it.

They stay like that until long after darkness has fallen and the last of the lightning bugs has faded into the trees. And then, under the light of the moon, they stay a little longer.

When they return to camp, hand in hand, Madi’s eyes drooping, even Raven’s teasing, “Nice night with the family?” doesn’t sting the way it did before.

Clarke squeezes Bellamy’s hand and he squeezes back, shooting their friend a smile as they pass.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Pretty much perfect.”


	18. Kids these days

“I can’t believe he sent me to my room,” Jordan mutters, jamming his fingers into the controller a little too hard. His dad always used to tell him to take it easy on the tech, but Mom would always start punching the buttons a little too forcefully when she was losing too. Jordan comes by it honestly.

“To be fair, you were trying to give me moonshine,” Madi says, with an incredible amount of smugness for a twelve year old.

Then again, he’s heard she has a computer chip loaded with other, older personalities in her brain. He’s still figuring out what to make of that.

(He was afraid at first she’d slaughter him in video games but so far he’s still the undefeated champ.)

“You’re almost a teenager,” he says defensively. “I was drinking sips of moonshine here and there at your age.” He catches himself and backtracks. “Always under strict parental supervision, of course.”

She snorts. “Of course.”

“It’s just— who does Bellamy think he is? I have a father.” He pauses. “Had. Had a father. I don’t need him acting like my parent.”

“Learn to live with it,” Madi advises. Her feet dangle a few inches off the floor, bouncing against the leg of the couch as she talks. “You’re Monty and Harper’s family, and they were Bellamy’s family. That means you’re his now too. And Clarke’s.”

“Not like you’re Clarke’s.”

The words come out more bitter than he wants them to. He holds his breath, hoping Madi won’t notice.

The truth is, he hadn’t really believed that when his parents put him in cryo, it would be the last time he ever saw them. Ever hugged them. He always assumed they were being overly cautious and that they’d be there when he woke up.

It was jarring to wake up to a world without them. Just like it’s jarring to meet all these people he’s heard so much about his whole life. He doesn’t need Bellamy and Clarke to raise him; he’s been raised. But it’s hard to go from a world where nearly all he had was his family, to feeling lost and alone.

Madi doesn’t miss his brittle tone. She pauses the game, then reaches over and puts her hand on his arm.

“ _Exactly_ like I’m Clarke’s,” she says. “I had another family once. And they still are my family. But she’s my family now too, because we both decided she was. Like it or not, they’ve decided you’re theirs. I don’t think there’s any getting out of it.”

Jordan snorts but it comes out softer than he means it to. He forgets sometimes that he’s not the only one who grew up with just his mom and dad around. Madi probably understands better than anyone else could.

“Those voices in your head tell you to say all that?”

“Nope,” she says cheerfully, withdrawing her hand and restarting the game. Her feet start swinging again. “I figured all of that out by myself.”

He smiles. “You’re a pretty smart kid. So if Bellamy is my family, and Clarke is yours, that makes us family too, right? I always wanted a younger sister.”

Madi’s grin has a sharp edge to it. He can see it in her reflection on the screen. “You realize I’m older than you are, right?” She asks, hitting the buttons in some combination that actually works, and knocking his avatar out of frame. His half of the screen goes black. He blinks in surprise. “I think that makes you _my_ little brother.”

He barks a laugh. “That is so not how it works.”

“I’m the commander, I make the rules.”

“Oh yeah?” He says, the game resetting as his character comes back to life. “We’ll just see about that. You’re on my ship now, _Commander_.“

Madi laughs. “Bring it on.”


End file.
